


Tears and Rain

by Charli



Category: Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Angst, Cemetery, Death, M/M, Romance, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-10
Updated: 2011-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-27 04:06:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charli/pseuds/Charli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>~I guess it's time I run far, far away;<br/>Find comfort in pain, all pleasure's the same:<br/>It just keeps me from trouble.<br/>It's more than just words:<br/>It's just tears and rain.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Tears and Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Title and Lyrics by James Blunt

He is family they tell him. He wishes that were true. If it were he would’ve been there sooner, would’ve been there at the end, would’ve been there always.

He is the best friend, the colleague. He was also the lover and the loved. But now their secret is gone forever. No more faked drunken sleepovers, no more surprises in the shower, no more the fool who lives a double life.

Lived.

He has to accept that all future conversations about _him_ will involve the past tense. He wears a mask of grief. It covers a face of utter wretchedness, of a soul destroyed and a world torn apart.

He and Jeremy are each given time to be alone with him. As Jeremy exits the room he wonders what Jeremy said, if anything. Jeremy’s eyes are red, as are his. Jeremy wears his grief openly and his wife holds his hand tightly, there is nothing to be said that they cannot convey to each other by glance alone.

They were like that once. Twenty-four hours back into the past and although his world was far from perfect (try complicated, try deceptive, try a bold-faced lie) he knew love. Unconditional love and understanding and now it lies still on a hospital bed, starched white sheets covering a body he knows, _knew_ , better than his own.

He turns away from everyone and enters the small room. The lights are low and he looks at the man he loves lying peaceful but broken in death.

He bites his bottom lip as he moves closer to the bed. There is extensive bruising to his face. Bandages cover wounds, machines are disconnected and silent.

The door has been closed, the blinds are drawn. They are alone. He is alone.

Joy, passion, everything that was right, that made life worth living, is gone. They are waiting for him, outside the door, in that other world, the other world where he lives a deceitful half life. Only in here, in this room, does the truth exist.

He doesn’t have to force the tears; they flow, uncontrolled, down his cheeks, leaving dark stains on the front of his shirt. His breath catches and hitches in his chest and he fights to draw oxygen into his lungs. Guttering, choking, drowning in fear and despair, as he feels his heart shatter into a thousand painful pieces.

Eyes are closed, as if in sleep, and arms lie atop the sheets. He reaches out and takes a hand in his. The hand feels small and the flesh is cold and dry. He presses his other hand over it, trying to exude some warmth into this lifeless extremity that once teased him to the brink of orgasm, and then held him as he gave into the pleasure of release.

He is not here, he thinks. He resists the urge to climb onto the bed, to cover this cold body with his own. To press his lips against his and give breath once again to the man he loves.

There is nothing here for him now. He staggers slightly as he exits the room, blinded by tears and they understand and Jeremy holds him; brothers in grief and yet it is their grief that divides them.

He goes back to his other life, knowing he will never have this again. There will be no other, _he_ was the only one.

There is no new series. He and Jeremy do not share the stage and their grief with the nation. Jeremy does not segue into the next clip with a well-timed and often discussed “Anyway…”

He visits his grave only once. He doesn’t bring flowers. This is the only place he feels he can still talk to him and he needs to say goodbye.

He goes in winter, late in the afternoon. He goes during a torrential thunder storm, the sky as black as the shards of his broken heart. He hides his tears in the rain and his words are grabbed by the wind and carried off into the clouds.

He sets the small packet of American hard gums against the headstone. “Fusker misses you.” He says “Jeremy misses you. I don’t know how to live without you, but I’m trying.”

He listens for an answer, for something to speak to him, to offer words of comfort, of relief. He wants something to mend him. But there is no glue for the soul. He’s ready to leave, never to return and they will not speak again, it’s too hard for so many reasons.

“I still hold your hand at night,” Richard tells him at last, as he turns and hunkers down inside his jacket, “in mine, while I’m asleep.”

And I always will, he thinks. And the last of his tears wash silently away like spit in the rain.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published under the title "Spit in the Rain"


End file.
